“Was he out last night?” I asked, thinking of the sound of the cane on the street where Billy Jennings had died.
Tanish shrugged. “He can walk around a bit, but not far, and no stairs. Mostly he sits in the old machine room on this box he had delivered by some Mahweni a few days ago. Barely takes his eyes off it. Smacks your knuckles with his stick if you so much as touch it. Like we care. Probably full of spades and brushes. He wants us to think he’s the big crime lord when he’s really just a hired man. Pathetic.”
This was as much a part of his pose as his careful leaning against the wall, but I didn’t call him on it. He wasn’t as safe now that I wasn’t around to watch out for him, and if pretending he wasn’t afraid of Morlak helped, that was fine by me.
“A box?” I asked. “How big?”
Tanish motioned with his hands: about a yard long and almost as high. Big enough for the Beacon.
“And he’s just sitting on it?”
“Waiting to make ‘the trade of his career,’” he said mockingly.
“Who is he selling to?” I asked.
Tanish shrugged. “He’s talking to Deveril, but he’s just a whatchacallit: ‘third party,’” he said. “The buyer won’t show till he makes the handoff.” He eyed the pendant round my neck. “Wasn’t that Berrit’s?”
I nodded.
“Why are you wearing it?”
Now I shrugged, uncertain. “Someone has to remember him,” I said.
He gave me a shrewd look. “Why do you care about him so much?” he asked.
“Because nobody else does,” I said, light as I could, keeping the doors barred, the dam bolstered.
“But you didn’t even know him,” he replied.
I took a breath and tried again. “It could have been you, Tanish,” I said. “Or me, or any of us, and no one cares. That’s not right. It can’t be.” He frowned and I redirected the conversation. “These men Morlak is trading that box to, what do they look like?”
He shrugged again. “Black fellas,” he said.
My stomach turned. “Not Grappoli?” I asked, pushing the image of Mnenga’s face from my mind.
He shook his head. “Could be working for them, I s’pose,” he said, liking the idea. “You think there’ll be a war? Fevel says it’s time we gave the Grappoli what’s coming to them. Says they killed some Feldeslanders last week. A crowd of Grappoli tore them to pieces. Some of the killers are friends with Mahweni right here in Bar-Selehm!”
“Fevel doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I said.
“Do you?” he asked, giving me a sour look. “Everyone knows you can’t trust the Grappoli or the blacks.”
“You work with Mahweni all the time,” I said.
“Those are city blacks,” he said. “The others—the Unassimilated who dress in skins and carry spears—those are the ones you have to watch out for. They aren’t like us. Sell us to the Grappoli in a heartbeat if they had the chance.”
The remark annoyed and unsettled me, but I didn’t want to fight with him, so I changed the subject. “Who is paying for the demolition?” I asked.
“Our first government contract,” said Tanish proudly.
“Did they send an overseer?”
“Nope,” said Tanish. “It’s just us.”
I frowned.
“What?” he asked, as if I were taking some of the shine off their achievement.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just seems odd that they’d give you a big job when Morlak can’t be here and not send someone to make sure it goes smoothly.”
“Why?” said Tanish, getting irritable now. “What’s the big deal? It’s just a job.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“We can manage without you, you know,” he blurted.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “I didn’t say you couldn’t do it.”
He looked sulky and glanced back to the bright, weed-strewn square as if he wanted to leave.
“Hey,” I pushed, nudging him and smiling. “I know you can do it. You are the most destructive hummingbird I know.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said. “Makes me sound like a kid.”
“All right,” I said. “I won’t.”
“I should go. Fevel will be … I should go.”
I nodded, biting back my sadness, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder as he pulled away.
*
I WATCHED HIM LEAVE, and the farther away he got, the stranger it all seemed. The newspaper had definitely said that the tower would come down next week, not today, so either someone had changed their mind, or the city had been deliberately misled.
Why?
The same reason that there was no official presence at a government-funded demolition, no representative from the military who had once run a historically significant base, nor any spokesperson from the Mahweni who had so wanted the tower destroyed? Bringing a tower down was a grand spectacle, but there was no press photographer to capture the moment, no one—in fact—of any kind to see anything.
Someone wants this done quietly.